Application of DoE methods to establish a model for the pulsed laser deposition of PZT thin-films

Controlling the growth of piezoelectric lead zirconate titanate (Pb[ZrxTi1-x]O3 – PZT) thin-films is a key issue for their application in sensor and actuator devices. The pulsed laser deposition (PLD) process which is used in this work to grow PZT on platinized 150 mm silicon wafers can be easily modified by changing deposition parameters as the deposition pressure, deposition temperature, laser spot area on the target or laser pulse energy. In order to investigate the influence of these PLD parameters on the deposition rate and properties of the PZT thin-film as the leakage current density or the transverse piezoelectric coefficient e31,f, statistical Design of Experiment methods were applied. Empirical models could be derived, describing the thin-film properties as function of the deposition parameters. It is observed that not only the PZT deposition parameters but also the parameters which are modified for the deposition of the LaNiO3 (LNO) template need to be controlled carefully. The parameters with the highest effect on the e31,f are shown to be the combination of deposition pressure and deposition temperature of the PZT layer, where either both high or low values lead to good PZT properties.